2008-01-30

I've been meaning to write something about the closure of a Stora Enso pulp mill in Kemijärvi, but the story keeps growing in all directions, so I'll just do a quick recap of its main branches.

There's the government ownership angle. The government owns a plurality of Stora Enso stocks, so the opposition demands that it throw its weight around to influence Stora Enso's decision. (Here's the Left Alliance linking Kemijärvi and Bochum.) The government resists, preferring use its stocks to make money rather than politics - and, truth be told, most opposition parties would agree were they in the government.

There's the Massaliike (fi) ("Mass Movement") angle. It's a citizens group that wants to keep the pulp mill operational or, failing that, to set up a new mill in place of the old. The demonstration it organized when Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen visited Kemijärvi - a break from chatting with Dick Cheney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bill Gates - was a pretty effective spectacle.

There's also the Anaika Group angle. I find this part of the story quite confusing. Anaika wants to buy the mill's site to set up a wood processing factory. Some Kemijärvi folks seem to believe that the company isn't on the up and up, but in that case, what angle would it be exploiting?

At the end, the article has comments from a bunch of MPs whose names came up during the calls. I'd like to have a strong notion that these men are guilty of something before I printed their names in a newspaper and I'm not sure a person's name coming up during a round of phone calls qualifies.

On the other hand, Centre Party MP Pekka Vilkuna doesn't do himself any favors by opining that he has been accused of improper behavior "because it is fashionable these days to say that" and advising women to laugh along at the jokes. Obviously it's not "fashionable" to name Vilkuna, in particular.

PS: The article focuses on MPs and states that "as a rule the party doing the harassing is an MP", but according to the survey in almost half of the cases the harasser wasn't an MP. So it's not much of a rule.

2008-01-28

From the stupid criminal files comes this tale (fi) of murderous intentions, in which several men, all around 20 years old, attempted to kill a woman with a crossbow.

To the surprise of the would-be killers, an arrow to the head failed to knock the victim unconscious. She fled to her apartment's balcony from where she screamed for help and the assailants ran away. The police soon apprehended a man carrying a crossbow near the apartment.

But that's not all! Also, being thorough contract killers, they had planned the whole thing carefully on a mate's computer. The plans found by the police - of course they were found - included a map of the target and the victim's description.

Why did the men attempt to murder the woman, you may want to know. The police believe the perps had been hired to do the deed by the victim's 16-year old daughter. Natch.

These events raise a couple of questions. First, how large was the daughter's allowance that she could afford to pay several hired killers? Alternatively, just how cheap is it to hire a complete moron to kill someone?

Second, wouldn't it be better to plan a murder without leaving documents for the police to discover? I mean, were I planning to kill someone, I wouldn't leave a file on my computer that says:

1. Go to 13 Murder Street, where Mrs Victim lives.2. Shoot Mrs Victim in the head with a crossbow.3. ?4. Profit.

Third... A crossbow? Really? How embarrassed is the guy who proposed that particular murder method right about now?

2008-01-27

After Tasavallan presidentti, the same makers have a new show on YLE, Presidentin kanslia ("The Office of the President"). In my opinion it's a clear improvement on Itse valtiaat, which it replaces in the Saturday night lineup. The humor is considerably sharper, more topical, and more timely.

The show also fixes many of the things I criticized in its predecessor. The pseudo-documentary form has been dropped, the characters interact with each other more, and they have better defined personalities. Sometimes things even happen on the screen, although the budget is obviously still quite tiny.

On the downside, jokes about Tarja Halonen being a Stasi informant will get really old really fast for the segment of the viewing population that doesn't hate her guts, which I'd guess is the large majority. It doesn't work as a comedic exaggeration, because there really are people out there who believe those sort of things of her.

2008-01-26

In a story that has some potential, according to a survey (fi) commissioned by the Parliament, one in three women working there have been subjected to sexual harassment. About one in seven had been harassed physically and the rest had heard inappropriate comments. In four incidents out of ten, the harasser was a Member of Parliament. In response, former Culture Minister Tarja Saarela (Centre Party) has said (fi) that she has been harassed.

There were about 100 respondents in this section of the survey, so we're talking about 33 respondents who say that they have been harassed and about 14 respondents who report having been harassed physically. In total the survey was sent to 680 people, out of whom 320 respondent. Of the respondents, 224 were women. The response rate means that we probably shouldn't extrapolate the harassment rates to the entire parliamentary workforce, but the results still show that there's a problem.

If you have any doubts about the wisdom of Scientology, the Scientology Handbook should help you make up your mind. Consider, for example, the chapter describing "assists" for illnesses and injuries. Apparently the way to help coma patients is to take their hands and press them against different objects, like pillows and bedspreads. You should talk to them while you're doing this - "I am going to assist you to recover. Feel that Tom Cruise action figure. Thank you." - because otherwise they might think you're a crazy person.

2008-01-24

Social Democratic Party members won't be voting in a non-binding poll on party chair. Quoth current party chair Eero Heinäluoma:

The party management's decision was unanimous, with Eero Heinäluoma, the chairman of the SDP, saying the rules would not be changed "when one racer is already on the track".

Mr Heinäluoma's analogy was a reference to the former foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja who has challenged the party leader and called for a consultative vote among all party members before the summer's party conference.

Tuomioja's candidacy can be used as a convenient argument, but it's hardly the determining reason. If Tuomioja announces tomorrow that he's no longer in the race, it seems highly probable to me that the rules still wouldn't be changed.

2008-01-22

As you've no doubt read elsewhere, a movement is gathering pace in Germany to not buy products from companies that have moved production from one place to another. The German protest movement is asking everyone to boycott Volkswagen, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz cars; Siemens electronics; and every other thing in existence. In future the German protesters plan to exist on a diet of berries and rain water and to mainly wear leaves.

2008-01-21

Helsingin Sanomat commissioned a study (fi) ranking cities with over 25'000 inhabitants based on the number of capital crimes committed in them in 2000-2006. Top of the list was the South Karelian city of Imatra with 5.72 capital crimes per 100'000 inhabitants, followed by Lahti and Kerava with roughly 5.5 capital crimes. The biggest cities landed in the lower reaches of the ranking; Helsinki was 24th out of 37 cities with 2.55 capital crimes.

I have little to say on the topic - I just wanted to use the headline - and the story already makes the obvious points: The results say very little about how safe you are in public places. The typical capital crime is perpetrated by a drunk, unemployed person on a drunk, unemployed acquaintance. ("Who can say why Jeppe drinks alcohol. Some lose self-control, when they drink a lot. Then these sort of things happen," commented the police chief of Imatra.)

2008-01-20

Re the proposed changes to the Lotteries Act it should be noted that none of them are not a sure thing. The proposals came from Ministry of Social Affairs and Health officials and will need political backing to go through. Some politicians, e.g National Coalition MP Arto Satonen (fi) and Green League MP Jyrki Kasvi (fi), have criticized the proposal to curb online poker by enabling losing players to get their money back. Outside of the Parliament, the Coalition Youth have expressed their disapproval (fi).

It's important, though, to have good arguments against the proposals, and on that front I'm afraid that these critics fall down a bit. For example, Satonen asks, "Is this how individual responsibility works? Do we really want to give young people the model, that you can gamble carefree even while drunk, and then afterwards have others pay for your losses?" The ministry of course argues - compellingly, I think - that it would never come to that. Should it be proved that Finnish pokers can effectively recoup their losses in courts, they would be barred from playing.

Satonen, Kasvi, and the Coalition Youth all propose setting up a national Internet poker site run by Finland's Slot Machine Association (RAY). The problem here is that the new service would have to compete with all the existing ones. The one competitive advantage I can think of is trustworthiness, but I kind of suspect that's only enough to attract a large market share if the non-licensed foreign competitors aren't superior in other fields, like quality of opponents, quality of software, and the house's profit margin.

Kasvi writes, "Finnish authorities could monitor its operation and legislation could mandate for example recognizing the signs of problem gambling, counseling to control playing, and recognizing and shutting out obvious professional players." Given that the signs of a professional player is that he plays quite a bit and tends to win, I'm not sure barring everyone who meets the description is going to make a new site very popular. I can also see professional players and losing poker addicts alike staying put in the Internet card rooms they currently frequent.

All that said, the proposals are worth opposing. Problem gambling just isn't that common and online poker trails behind slot machines in the gambling form of choice for the true addict. The Määttä report (fi, PDF) has some statistics on this and although it tries to paint the issue as a serious problem, the actual figures cited are pretty darned small. In 2003, about 5'500 people called a problem gambling help line; in 2006, the share of online gamblers among the callers was 14 percent; according to international studies, about 0.5 to three percent of people suffer from gambling related problems; and so on. Further, compared to e.g. excessive alcohol use, the externalities from problem gambling are tiny - fewer health problems, less crime, etc. The problem isn't widespread or intensive enough to justify restricting people's personal autonomy like the ministry proposes.

2008-01-19

The two aspects of the US presidential campaign I find most interesting from the point of view of a condescending European are the candidates' foreign policy views and their environmental views. If you've been following the campaign at all, you've probably gotten a pretty good idea of where the front-runners stand on foreign policy, but environmental policy doesn't get as much attention in the media. To that end, here's a handy charty from Grist magazine.

While I'm at it, the Green League party organ Vihreä lanka published an article on the topic (fi). Their conclusion was that John Edwards was the best of the Democrats, although they got there mainly by noting that he opposes nuclear power whereas Barack Obama supports it and Hillary Clinton won't say. If you disagree with the assumption that nuclear power is bad for the environment, your ranking may differ with theirs. On the Republican side, they named John McCain as the first Republican candidate who takes climate change seriously and supports cap-and-trade.

2008-01-17

Centre Party secretary Jarmo Korhonen presents in Apila magazine (fi) his plan for electing the party chair. Korhonen would like to see a member vote that would be binding in the case that one candidate more than half of the votes. Otherwise the choice would be left to the party conference.

Turun Sanomat interviewed (fi) other party secretaries. National Coalition Party secretary Taru Tujunen thinks a member vote is a "very interesting idea." She claims, though, that the Coalition's party conferences are "so big that in fact everyone can attend." Green League secretary Panu Laturi notes that one in ten members already attends party conferences. According to Left Alliance secretary Sirpa Puhakka, "it's clear that the party conference decides," but that a member vote "isn't out of the question for example in ten years time."

Within the Social Democratic Party, Erkki Tuomioja, who set off this discussion, has found a supporter in potential rival candidate Jutta Urpilainen. As per her text message to Helsingin Sanomat (fi), "a non-binding referendum would be a good start" to increasing party members' opportunities to make a difference.

2008-01-16

It turns out (fi) that the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health is preparing an update to the Lotteries Act (PDF). A working group published its suggestions (PDF, fi) today. A ban on minors' gambling is apparently on the cards, apparently, as well as a ban on advertising, save for factual information distributed by licensed operators.

The working group also takes aim at foreign online casinos, or "illegal gambling providers", as the ministry calls them. The possibilities of banning money transfers and Internet connections should be examined. In an ingenious solution, the working group mentions the idea that losing players would be entitled to get their money back from non-licensed providers - the hope being that foreign Internet casinos wouldn't accept Finnish customers. I find it difficult to believe that such a blatant end run around EU legislation could succeed, but I'm no legal expert.

Helping people with gambling problems is cited extensively as the rationale for making these changes. I'd buy that as the main motivating factor if the proposals also went after slot machines, the leading cause of gambling addiction in Finland. Since they don't, I'll go with the theory that the ministry is trying to protect and strengthen Finland's Slot Machine Association's (RAY) monopoly on casino table games.

The ministry also ordered an expert report (fi, PDF) from Professor Kalle Määttä. In the report, Määttä makes some questionable claims about the nature of poker. For example, he argues that poker could be considered a game of luck because, even though in the long run good players will win over bad ones, in the short term a beginner can beat a professional. But of course the better player has an edge over worse players in the short term, too, regardless of whether it is enough to overcome the variance inherent in distributing cards randomly.

Määttä also compares online poker to a pyramid scheme, noting that in both many people lose money and relatively few win. That disparity, however, isn't the defining feature of a pyramid scheme. After all, in Lotto, the state-run lottery, a great many lose and very few win; that doesn't mean that it's a pyramid scheme.

2008-01-15

What a terrible idea this is. Admittedly a lot of people in a lot of different countries know Tony Blair, which can't be said for most possible candidates. Alas, he's known for making a disastrous mistake and then not owning up to it, i.e. for showing bad judgment and not being particularly trustworthy. That sort of fame isn't really a desirable quality in a candidate.

2008-01-14

Helsingin Sanomat's Hanna Kaartio magnificently reports (fi) that Erkki Tuomioja is leading the race for Social Democratic Party chair on the Internet. She musters two, count them, points of data in favor of this thesis:

On Facebook, Tuomioja's support group has about 140 members, whereas Jutta Urpilainen's support group has about 40 members.

On reilusuomi.fi (fi), a SDP website where people can share their thoughts on the party's future, Tuomioja was leading a poll on who should be the next chair. Out of ten votes in total, he had five, Urpilainen had four, and current chair Eero Heinäluoma had one.

That's some ace reporting right there.

Meanwhile in less earth-shattering news (fi), party secretary Maarit Feldt-Ranta (who's actually more likely than Heinäluoma to lose her post) said that Tuomioja is too late with the proposal for a non-binding vote open to all party members. "The party board or the party council received no suggestions that an advisory vote by the members should be organized. Tuomioja must have missed this." Sure, the party council could change its mind in its next meeting, but Feldt-Ranta thinks the option is "hypothetical".

2008-01-13

As I've written before, certain sections of the media have been wringing their hands over the dearth of top level meetings between Finland and the United States. Now, however, Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen is scheduled to meet with the guy in charge:

Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen starts a visit to the United States on Sunday. Vanhanen will have official discussions with the U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney in Washington D.C.

2008-01-12

Social Democratic Party MP, former Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja announced (fi) he will stand as a party chair candidate in a non-binding party membership vote, if such a thing is organized. The vote isn't a sure thing, though, as the current chair, former Finance Minister Eero Heinäluoma has expressed doubts about holding it.

The election method is for regional representatives gathered to the party conference to choose the chair. I think Tuomioja believes that if the vote is left up to party insiders, he doesn't stand much of a chance, so he needs to up the public pressure. If he wins a non-binding membership vote and still loses the party conference representative vote, it would lead to calls to change the election procedure, which might also be an acceptable result for him. Also, if party members are denied the opportunity to have their say, Tuomioja has some new supporting evidence for his case against Heinäluoma.

Tuomioja's themes were undivided human rights and equality. According to him the party's popularity depends on how well those values are carried out. I find a bit odd the emphasis on human rights. Now, obviously human rights are important, but they're not exactly a leading election issue, are they? Support for human rights also doesn't seem to differentiate him all that much from his main opponent. Or does Heinäluoma have some anti-human rights positions of which I'm not aware?

2008-01-11

It's enlightening to occasionally observe how differently the same events are covered in Finnish and Russian press. For example, compare Helsingin Sanomat with Moscow Times on Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva's comments upon taking the OSCE chairmanship.

While I'm on the subject, while this YLE article states that Russia accepting election monitoring during the upcoming presidential election "would be a great victory for Finland", I'm far from convinced that Finland had anything to do with it.

2008-01-10

The next time an unlucky politician is criticized for not knowing the price of some common grocery, remember this:

More than one in ten respondents could not give any price for a carton of milk or a packet of sausages in euros, while those few who did logged an average error of almost 30 per cent.

And yes, things used to be better in the old days:

In a similar poll taken before euro notes and coins hit the tills in Finland found that nearly all respondents could provide some sort of estimates of the prices of staples, with errors remaining below the 20-per cent mark.

2008-01-09

Social Democratic Party MP and former Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja will reveal Saturday whether he'll challenge incumbent Eero Heinäluoma for the party chairmanship. Helsingin Sanomat reports (fi) that sources close to Tuomioja believe he will enter the race. In 2005, when Heinäluoma was elected to the job, Tuomioja gathered a third of the vote.

Since the parliamentary election loss, Tuomioja has been busy searching for a new direction for the party. Inasmuch as he's found one, what better way is there to put it in practice than as the chairman of the party? I don't think he's going to win, mind you, but it would be interesting to see him try and what repercussions it would have to SDP's policies.

Other potential candidates who have not ruled out a run are former Justice Minister Johannes Koskinen and Jutta Urpilainen. The party meeting will be held in June, so now's a good time to announce one's candidacy.

2008-01-08

Great ledes of our time, from Helsingin Sanomat (fi): "A majority of Finns thinks that the cause of poverty is that a person is unemployed or has a too low salary." It seems that most Finns have firmly grasped the link between not making much money and poverty. No wonder we rocked PISA.

More seriously, the study (fi) that prompted the article looked into whether people attribute poverty to individual, structural, or fatalistic causes. According to a 2005 survey, most blamed poverty on societal structures, fate, and poor luck. Few think poverty is about laziness or lack of will.

I'm not sure why you'd want to set these causes against each other. Surely the correct explanation includes a bit of each.

According to Kiljunen, the Social Democratic representatives involved with constitutional affairs believe that if the President's powers are taken away, electing the President should be left to the Parliament. Kiljunen said that he considers this to be the best alternative.

The article notes that the Social Democrats have traditionally demanded that the President be elected by the Parliament. After the last five presidential elections, however, it shouldn't take a genius to see that the election system is good for the Social Democrats due to the centre-right parties supporting their own candidates and the Left Alliance usually backing the Social Democrat in the race. Why would Kiljunen want to make an unpopular change that is likely to hurt his party's power? I wonder how widespread his kind of thinking is among the Social Democrats.

According to Sasi, the President should be elected through a popular vote, because "There's not yet enough confidence that some electoral college would select the sort of person the people want. And there's no reason to take the election away from the people, even if the powers are reduced." Sasi, too, favors stripping the President of her powers.

The logical options, I think, are a ceremonial head of state elected by the Parliament and a President with real powers elected by the voters. Sasi's argument about the potential for cabinet wheeling and dealing is silly; there'd be no point whatsoever in electing a controversial, unpopular figure to a ceremonial post. If the choice is left to the Parliament, I fully expect our future Presidents to be inoffensive establishment figures. It'll all become frightfully dull.

As far as other parties are concerned, the article says that the Centre Party is undecided, with the party base traditionally supporting a strong President. True Finns chair Timo Soini, who rarely misses these kind of opportunities, announced (fi) that he, at least, likes the current situation.

2008-01-05

Helsingin Sanomat has a piece on party web magazines, in which representatives from all parties promise to develop whatever services they're currently offering.

Currently only the Centre Party has the best web magazine going in Apila (fi). By contrast, the party organ, Suomenmaa (fi), has a pretty shabby-looking web site that only carries a few stories from the current paper and has nothing in the way of archives that you can browse.

The Social Democratic Party's Ruusuverkko (fi) publishes two to four stories a month, which isn't enough. It also lacks a newspaper-like front page, although the stories do appear on the party website's front page. Of course there's Uutispäivä Demari (fi), the party organ, which has a pretty good website.

For the National Coalition Party, Verkkouutiset (fi) does a good job of reproducing politics-related Finnish News Agency stories with only the occasional editorial thrown in. Aside from the editorials, its Coalitionist leanings sometimes show in stories' headlines and prominence. The party organ, Nykypäivä (fi), provides more opinion pieces and has a nice archive.

The Green League's party organ, Vihreä Lanka (fi), doesn't put all too many of its stories online. The party has no online magazine per se; the closest thing is a blog (fi) which isn't updated all that often. The Left Alliance's party organ Kansan Uutiset (fi). Despite a slightly clumsy design, it offers a decent amount of original news stories and opinion pieces.

The common problems these papers have is that a) they don't provide enough original content (Ruusuverkko, Verkkouutiset, Vihreä Lanka), and b) the web design is pretty poor (Suomenmaa, Kansan Uutiset, Ruusuverkko). Instead of having several papers on the Web, maybe the parties should focus on developing their party organs' online presences. The content is already mostly there; what's lacking are websites that look sharp, offer archives that you can browse, and offer at least some interactive features. Group blogs might also be nice - for examples, see TAPPED, The Corner, or Hit & Run.

2008-01-04

I propose that henceforth all headlines for stories about Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee should be huckawords - that is, combinations of the prefix "hucka-" and the actual word. Preferably the headlines should end in an exclamation point, but this is not strictly mandatory.

I'll give a few example, so you'll see how this works.

Story: Huckabee wins a primary.Headline: Huckaboom!

Story: Huckabee loses a primary.Headline: Huckabust!

While single syllable end words work well, you shouldn't be afraid to use longer ones.

2008-01-03

YLE reports (fi) that Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt (se) said that defense cooperation between Finland, Norway, and Sweden meets the new types of soft security challenges better than NATO membership. Bildt raised the possibility of also inviting other countries on the Baltic. (Bildt expressed frustration about being unable to find information on the Foreign Ministry's NATO report in languages other than Finnish. Not an aLwNGL reader, obviously.)

Noted NATO membership supporter and parliamentary foreign policy committee chair Pertti Salolainen (National Coalition Party) was asked for comment. He agreed with Bildt on the Nordic approach, but expressed some reservation about including the Baltic countries. Salolainen also admitted a basic fact: "Now it's pretty clear that during this parliamentary term and during this presidency we won't be joining NATO." True, that.

Noted NATO membership opponent and President of the Republic Tarja Halonen (Social Democratic Party) was likewise asked for comment. She, too, agreed (fi). "[Bildt] said that with regards to these new security risks, Nordic cooperation may even be more important than membership in some alliance. With this in mind one can say that he's thinking along Finnish lines. To kid a little, it's nice that Swedes too join in this thinking." The difference to Salolainen was that Halonen was less reserved on the idea of including the Baltic states, mentioning that there have already been talks on cooperation.

The point to grasp here is that Nordic defense cooperation is so inoffensive that both sides of the Finnish foreign policy debate can embrace. A cynic would say this is true because it wouldn't make much of a difference to anything, new threats or no new threats. But it's still nice.

2008-01-02

The Helsinki City Museum has a nice online exhibition of pictures taken of Helsinki sights by Signe Brander in the early 1910s. The pages are in Finnish, but navigation is pretty simple. There are two tours ("kierros"), each of which have several objects ("kohde"), each of which feature several pictures ("kuva"). "Panoraama" takes you to a panorama view and "animaatio" to an animation view, where applicable.

To keep things political, here's an animation (of sorts) of a workers' May Day parade.

2008-01-01

In the remote chance that you didn't the President's traditional New Year's speech, you can find the text (fi) on-line. A translation is probably in the works. If so, it'll be posted here. In the meantime, here's my summary:

"Things have been nice and peaceful lately. It's a shame about Jokela, though.

"Still, public welfare services rock, because they keep you safe. Social equality rocks, too, but sadly nowadays some people make less money than others.

"You know what else is nice? Comprehensive income agreements. I mean, just think about this autumn's quarrels. I hear some people want to make some reforms here.

"Everyone should do something about climate change, including us. Also, the Baltic Sea is a bit polluted. Come on, Baltic Sea peoples, let's work together here.

"How about that Mikael Agricola, eh? Not that everyone speaks Finnish.

"There are Christians, Jews, and Muslims in Finland, and I've been talking to all three. Talking is good.

"I met an Afghan immigrant girl. She said she likes it here, probably due to the peace.

"Big ups to our soldiers serving abroad.

"We'll be chairing OSCE next year. The whole thing was Kekkonen's idea, need I remind you.